I was on the site last night!
I was soooo happy to see something happening.
I have been watching that site and waiting since it crashed!
I won't be one of those newbies who isn't paying attention and not have submitted their info by the deadline....
I'M ON IT!!
I'm sooo freaking excited!!!

fnp i officially adore you. great post.

"Lars's math is right the fuck out the window now. Statistics doesn't have an answer for how many of the newbies, who signed up for invites are not paying attention to the ensuing events, and will not re-submit their contact info by the 30th."

I agree. It is out the window now. Its very different. This is new barrier which will weed out a lot of "wishy-washy" requests. Its enough to outweigh any statistical deviation by several orders of magnitude. Its just one more barrier aside from the ticket payment system, which I assumed would wash out all the "extra" requests people may or may not have made to improve their odds, people who weren't sure if they could go, etc. We're getting closer and closer to the real number. And this only helps to facilitate that

Although my math is still valid after all of that change happens, i.e. it'll come back in the window again after it was thrown out... since the second round will be calculated EXACTLY the same way, so people with a +1 will have the same advantage over those who don't in the second round as they did in the first. Its small, but real. Everyone has a better chance now, but everyone has a slightly DIFFERENT better chance. If that makes sense.

And I agree, I'll probably get a ticket. Its a matter of how and when. I wish there were some way that I could stress that this isn't sour grapes. Even with ticket in hand I'd be upset with this if only on the basis of bad math, let alone the unfairness that ACTUALLY impacted several people.

Anyway, you rock FNP. You've kept your head screwed on right this whole time.

I never seen the email posted either, although I did send my information.....

Whats in a name? :)

To repeat. This is what they're asking for:

Your full names
Snail mail address including zip code
email address you want e-invite codes sent to
any names you used on your request...first, nicknames, or playa names
Submit ID # (if you have it?)
Phone number

The key here is "any names you used on your request, first, nicknames, or playa names"

You can use any name you want on your request. You could use multiple unverifiable names. And even if you used the same name on all your requests, I'm sure that there are people out there who actually have the same name by chance. For these reasons they cant look for duplicates, because duplicate names could be innocuous, and because most people who cheat would use unique names for each request there really isn't much point.

Then there is the fact that they cant even get a php script working to do a simple database query and display it. How are they going to automate the system of checking every name against every other name if they cant do something that simple?

There were 1260 requests. You have to check each one against every other one, so thats 1260*1259 = 1,586,340 comparisons... but checking my name with another name is the same as checking that name with my name, so its really half as many comparisons or (1260*1259)/2 = 793,170. If it takes one person 1 second to check two names (highly unlikely they can do it that fast and keep track of what they're doing, it'll take 220 hours which is 27 eight hour work days full time. And aside from the real time it would take being much more than 1 second, we've already established that there is no point in trying to match the names, since you can apply as many times as you like with as many names as you like and some people have the same name by chance who cant be punished for it. And even if they are, which one do you punish? Both? For what? Coincidence? So there is no point in even checking. And if you did check, you still wouldn't have any way to match the multiple accounts people made under different names because they share NOTHING in common.

Why do we even need to do ANYTHING to "facilitate this process"??? We gave them all the info they needed already. Remember, this was going to work with the info they already have, and we'd be able to go pay and they'd email us the invites, without us providing any more information than they already have. All we had to do was login and make the actual payment and they'd email us the code we need to get in.

Why are they asking for an email address when they already have our email address? I got an email from transformus when I signed up to the invite system. They know my email already... why do they want it again? Probably because its just about the only unique thing they have to look people up with. I.E. if they cant match the names for some reason, they can always match that. Plus no 2 people would have the same email address, so people with the same name wouldn't be confused with each other. Why they're asking for the submit ID is beyond me, they clearly have that information already, and email is enough to uniquely identify our request in the database and find it. And the other stuff? Are they mailing me something? Am I getting a phone call? HUH?

So how do you know if I submitted 10 names and 10 emails? I can pretend to be any one of those 10 names and email them my info and get my ticket info emailed to one of those 10 emails. The way the system worked all you had to do was PICK a name and an email and a password. Any other information or lack thereof had no bearing on if you could be approved by the random lotto or not.

All that is happening is they're using what we send them to dig us out of the database (apparently by hand) to see if we're approved, then give us a way to pay somehow by email, then email us a code we have to present at the gate.

Why cant I use multiple email addresses and enter once with my playa name, and once with my first name, and once with my full name, and once with another playa name, and once with a nickname, once with my dog's name, etc etc.


"I assumed that's why they were asking for it - to pair our name with email address to confirm it's really us? "

So if I put the name "Jomama" and the email address "account.I.Just.made@google.com" and send it to them, and it matches something in the request database, that somehow proves I am who I say I am? What? I dont even know what logic you're basing that on...

How does that prove that I'm not also "sukkafoo" with the email address "another.account.I.made.right.after.that.one@google.com"? It doesn't.

If I tried to send them your name and your email it wouldn't work because I don't know what information you submitted with your request. However, there is nothing stopping me from submitting information from any of the multiple requests I made (theoretically speaking of course, I didnt actually cheat, but lets assume I did). All it proves is that I made that invite request, not that I didn't make more than one!!!

What if someone with a different tribe name starts arguing this same point with you suddenly out of nowhere? It couldn't possibly be me, with another name on another tribe account tied to another email right? How could anybody do that??? (aside from just doing it of course)

you need to create a new email login/password. it has a link for it underneath the fields you probably filled out with your old info.